Wednesday, December 24, 2014

When I go to see my grandbaby Nicholas, I give his parents a date night so they can spend some time alone together while I stay home and babysit. (It’s quite a sacrifice on my part.) What they may not realize is that this isn’t really about them. It’s about ME. They think it’s their date night, but that’s really just a ruse to get them out of the way for MY date night with Nick.

Well, on my last date night with three-month-old Nick, he was fussing about going to sleep, as usual. I held him and rocked him singing my go-to lullaby for the babies in my life, “Silent Night.” When I got to, “…sleep in heavenly peace”, he was doing just that. So I stopped singing and studied the sweet angel sleeping in my arms. Filled with love to overflowing, I couldn’t contain it all, and that love spilled out through my eyes and ran down my cheeks.Suddenly, Nick’s eyes popped open and he gave me a huge smile from ear to ear. Well, that just made the tears flow all the more. Then, I saw him taking a closer look at me and, for some reason, the sight of Nana with tears tickled him and he let out one of those delight-filled baby belly laughs. Which, of course made me laugh. And then Nick laughed back at me. Which made me laugh. And Nick laughed back at me again. And then he closed his eyes and resumed sleeping in heavenly peace. Oh, my! The two of us shared an incredible moment of joy. He won’t remember it, but I will, for the rest of my life. Sometimes these days when life seems to be getting the best of me, I’ll stop and think of that moment of joy with Nick and I can’t help but smile. (If you’ve seen me randomly smiling lately and you’ve wondered -- what’s up with that?-- now you know.)Joy is such a gift for us, isn’t it? It’s not the same thing as happiness. Happiness is fleeting, it comes and goes depending on the circumstances of our lives. But joy runs deep. Joy abides within us. Joy pulls us through turmoil and trouble, struggle and sorrow.Christmas joy comes to us every year when the earth is dark and cold, just when we need it the most. We fix our eyes on a baby in a cradle, surrounded by cows and sheep. His adoring parents watch his every breath. On a starry night, he is greeted by shepherds and angels. What could be more joyful than this holy moment filled with promise?And yet, if we know how the rest of the story goes, we also know that this child’s story isn’t all sweetness and light.A couple years ago, Clarkie’s dads noticed that he was distraught over the birth of Jesus at Christmas. Clarkie is a tender-hearted child and he couldn’t bear the thought of it. “Why is Jesus going to be born again? Then they’re just going to kill him all over again!” It was too much for him and he was in tears. Clarkie was right. Beneath the radiant joy, shadows of sorrow are lurking.As I hold my new grandson in my arms, I try to imagine all that he will experience in his life. Maybe he’ll be smart, or athletic, or funny. He may grow up to have a little boy of his own. He may be successful or famous. But I know that his life will also be like any other life and it will include pain, and heartbreak, and death. I can’t bring myself to think of it for more than a millisecond. But life does include sorrow, as well as joy. And that’s exactly why Christmas joy is so important.Have you ever seen one of those old cowboy movies where they’re out on a cattle drive and the cowboy leads the way only to discover that he’s stepped into quicksand? He thought everything was fine and all of a sudden he’s sinking fast.Have you ever felt like that in your life? Like you’re going along fine and then all of a sudden it feels like you’re sinking? You’re going down and there doesn’t seem to be any way out. Things are desperate. They may even feel hopeless.Well, in the old cowboy movies, they always throw the one who is sinking a rope. The cowboy grabs hold of that rope and hangs on for dear life as he’s pulled to safety. That’s what joy is for us. When we’re sinking in quicksand, it’s a rope for us to grab onto and hold on for dear life.Thank God for the gift of joy that comes to us at Christmas. It’s a joy that we can hang onto all the way through the cross. For the story of salvation is bookended with joy, isn’t it? At the end of our worship service on Christmas Eve, Ron played the “Hallelujah” chorus from Handel’s Messiah. The last time we heard it at Holy Trinity was when he played it at Easter. There is joy in the manger that carries us through the pain and sorrow of the cross and brings us at the last to the joy of the empty tomb.Joy is God’s gift to us at Christmas. Grab onto it, and hold on for dear life!

Monday, December 8, 2014

“The
beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God…” That’s how Mark
begins his gospel. For the first people who read these words, it packed a
wallop. That word for good news was typically
used when the Empire announced its decrees. And the label Son of God was reserved for Caesar. “The beginning of the good news
of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” was a gutsy statement. And it told the readers
of the earliest gospel in our Bible that this is the story of someone who didn’t
live by the rules of the Empire. He didn’t go with the flow and fit into his
culture. He lived his own way in the world, which was God’s way.

There
is no story of the birth of a baby in Mark. Instead, Mark’s gospel account begins
with John the Baptist. He links John to the prophet Elijah, the one whose
return would be a sign that the Messiah is about to make an entrance.

John
is aligned with the Old Testament prophets. So, in order to get John, we need
to get Old Testament prophets. From our modern usage of the word prophet, we
often think of them as fortune-tellers. But that’s actually not what prophets
do in the Bible. Prophets don’t predict the future, they analyze the present
for the sake of moving toward a different future. In other words, they say, Folks, this is what you’re doing. And if you
keep doing it, here’s what you can expect. There are consequences for the way
you’re living. If you want a different future, you need to make some
adjustments to your present. So, the most important thing the prophet does
is tell it like it is. Prophets are truth-tellers. Of course, that’s why
prophets don’t get invited to a lot of parties. I mean, really, who wants to be
around someone who’s telling you the truth all the time?

Have
you heard about all the controversy that’s been going on regarding the
curriculum of Advanced Placement history classes taught in high school? In
these AP classes, students are encouraged to take a critical approach to US
history. So there is no white-washing of the truth. Yes, our country has
accomplished some amazing things and we can all be proud of that. But our forebearers
were flawed. Our country’s motives haven’t always been pure. And there are
those who are so offended by the very thought of it that they’re convinced
exposing students to this curriculum threatens to destroy America. But isn’t it
only destroying the lies about America?

This
past week, the most destructive lie in our nation’s history has been smacking
us in the face. And if we don’t recognize the truth about ourselves, things are
only going to get worse. The fact is, we pride ourselves on being a nation
where all are created equal, but we have never operated that way. Our nation
was founded by an elite class that owned land. Land that produced wealth for
them on the backs of slaves. All people may have been created equal by God, but
they were not treated equally by other people. And that hasn’t changed. The racism
that created slavery lives on, despite the fact that we would like to believe
otherwise. It’s something that is always boiling beneath the surface in our
country, waiting to blow.

I
have a white friend who is totally baffled by all the anger over the grand jury
decision in Ferguson. Her point is that the grand jury did their job. The
evidence presented wasn’t enough to bring the police officer to trial. Those
are the facts and it makes no sense to see how angry people have become over this.
She thinks this is all about one court case. The way I see it, she just doesn’t
get it. The court cases in Ferguson, Brooklyn, Staten Island, and Cleveland
have become flashpoints. Never mind whether the decisions in those cases were
justified or not. That’s not really the point. The point is, people in this
country are angry. Racism is pervasive and it’s real. It’s been with our nation
from its birth and we’ve never dealt with it, so it’s not going to go away.
That’s the truth.

The
black people I know can tell you all about it if you ask them. (They might tell
you even if you don’t.) But most of the white people I know don’t see racism as
a major problem. What they see as a problem is the way black people have been
acting. But racism is not a problem for them. I suspect that’s because it seems
to be working for them. And now I need to stop talking about them and start talking about us, because I’m as white as they come.
And with my white status come certain privileges. As a white mother with a white
son, I have never worried about my son being denied any opportunity because of
the color of his skin. I have never worried about my son being arrested for
something he didn’t do. I have never worried about my son being shot in the
street. I certainly have never worried about my son being killed by a police
officer.

So, am
I a racist? I’m a liberal who grew up in the 60s. I have marched with the
NAACP. I pastor a church where all are welcome. I have dear friends who are
black. I voted for Obama… both times. Surely, I’m not a racist!

Have
you ever noticed how quick we white folk are to say, I’m not a racist? Well, I want you to know the truth about me. I am
a racist. It took me a long time to realize that and then even longer to admit
it, but it’s true. I grew up in the upper Midwest where racism was more subtle
than it was in the South. And that’s what made it dangerous. I knew it wasn’t
nice to use the N word. I was polite
to the black students in my classes and liked to believe that I treated them
just like everybody else. But I didn’t. They weren’t welcome at my table in the
school cafeteria. I would never have considered dating one of them. They lived
in a different part of town. They had their world and I had mine.

I am convinced that it’s pert near impossible for a white person
growing up in this country not to be affected by racism on some level. It’s in
our wiring. The only way we can deal with it is by admitting that we have a
problem and then entering into the recovery process. We can never say, “I’m not
a racist any more” in much the same way that an alcoholic can never say “I’m
not an alcoholic anymore.” When it’s in your wiring, it’s always who you are.
There are no former alcoholics, only recovering alcoholics. There are no former
racists, only recovering racists. Nothing is going to change until we can be
honest about the lies that we carry around inside us.

Now, this truth about lies doesn’t only apply to racism. There are
a lot of other lies we use to prop ourselves up, lies that keep us from the authentic
lives we were created to live. But racism has been in our face this week. And
it happens to be the second week of Advent when we’re focused on the message of
John the Baptist, calling us to prepare the way of the Lord through repentance.
So it seems pretty clear to me that, as God’s people, on this day, we are being
called to confront the truth about race for us. I hope you will spend some time
doing that if you haven’t already.

“John
the Baptist appeared in the wilderness…” The wilderness. A wild place. A
lawless place. A place where the going is difficult, but anything is possible.
“John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of
repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” It wasn’t baptism the way we practice
it today in the church. It was a baptism of cleansing, of washing the old life
away, so you could begin again. That’s where repentance takes us. It means to change
the direction of our lives. To be headed one way and then realize, Wait a minute, I’m going the wrong way.
So we turn around and begin again, headed a new way. The key to repentance is that
turning point, when we realize we’re going the wrong way. That can only happen
when we’re honest with ourselves. We can live a lie and continue the way we’ve always
gone. But in the end, we probably aren’t going to be real happy with where that
way takes us. Or we can face the truth. We can repent.

And
that’s how we prepare the way of the Lord. That’s how we open ourselves to
follow the Jesus Way in the world. It’s the way of one who didn’t live by the
rules of the Empire. He didn’t go with the flow and fit into his culture. He
didn’t prop himself up with lies, but lived authentically before God.

Monday, November 24, 2014

I was in such a deep pit of pain that I felt like I would
never be able to climb to the top and return to the land of the living. Carrying the heavy burden of my grief every
moment of every day was exhausting. I couldn’t do it anymore. All I wanted to
do was cry and sleep. Well, that’s not entirely true. All I wanted to do was
fade away from everyone and everything, but that wasn’t possible. So I cried
and slept. When I slept I prayed that I wouldn’t wake up, but I always did. How long will this go on? I wondered. I
wanted the pain to end and it didn’t seem to be going away on its own.

I knew it was time for me to find a counselor, but I was new
to the area and wasn’t sure who to see. Several people I knew had gone to see
Dr. M and he helped them, so I decided to make an appointment and get started.

When Dr. M met me at the door to his office, I could see
that he was a gentle soul, advanced in years. He showed me to a comfy chair
opposite his own. After some preliminary chit-chat, he asked me to tell him
about my life. I started right in. I told him about all the tragic twists my
life had taken. I cried. I bit my lip, and I pressed on. I didn’t want to leave
anything out. I wanted him to know about all the pain I had endured.
Occasionally he said, “Yes” or “I see” or he grunted. As I spoke, he nodded, which
was all I needed to feel affirmed, so I continued. I was telling my story, with
all the sordid details, and he was listening. He cared. He was going to help me
live again.

About half-way into our session, I assumed Dr. M was nodding
when his chin fell down to his chest. Quickly, his head snapped up and for a
moment I wondered if he was having trouble staying awake. But how could anyone
possibly sleep during the riveting re-telling of my life story? Again his head
fell forward and slowly his eyelids closed. Perhaps
he is concentrating, I thought. His
eyes are closed to block out all distractions, so he can hone in on my words. So
I continued to open my woundedness to him, trusting that he would receive the
secrets I shared with compassion and wisdom.

And then I heard it. Snoring. He was snoring. Snoring! My
life, my pain, my drama had lulled the man to sleep!

I stopped talking for a bit to see if he would notice. But this
was no cat nap; he was heavy with sleep. So I quietly gathered my purse and let
myself out.

At the time I was livid. How dare that man fall asleep
during the story of my life! It may have been lacking in a lot of ways, but no
one could say that it hadn’t at least been interesting! I was hurt. I risked
opening myself up to a complete stranger, I shared thoughts and feelings I had never shared with anyone, and he swept them into the dust bin.

Last night over dinner I told this story to a friend and I
laughed to the point of tears. About 15 years have gone by since this incident
with Dr. M and, remembering it now, I find the entire episode hysterical. The
man fell asleep during the story of my life! Isn’t that great?

He had probably heard it all before. I wasn’t that usual
after all. Every day he met with people whose lives had taken a nose-dive into
the crapper. People like me, who experienced excruciating grief. People so depressed they didn’t think they were ever
going to survive. It happened all the time. Here I thought that, in the entire
history of the universe, there had never been any grief like mine. But to Dr. M
I was just another woman telling her tale of woe. And the man fell asleep!

The real beauty of this memory is that in the retelling of
it, it has become one of the funniest things that ever happened to me. He fell
asleep. I think it’s just perfect. Perfect because I lived to tell the story.
And my tears have been replaced with laughter. If that’s not healing, I don’t
know what is.

Saturday, November 15, 2014

The day after Missy was born, the doctor told her mother,
Lib, that she had Down syndrome. This was 50 years ago, back in a time when
children like Missy were often hidden away and what little the general
population knew about Down syndrome was often wrong. One of Lib's friends
insisted, “She’ll outgrow it.” Her sister told her to put Missy into an
institution immediately, to never bring her home from the hospital.

Missy’s parents and her four sisters had a better idea.
They received her as the newest member of their family and went about including
her in their lives. There were challenges, to be sure, but they learned that
the blessings far outweighed any struggles along the way. From Missy, Lib says
she has learned that “imperfection is beauty.” She stands in awe of her
daughter’s compassion and her wisdom.

When Missy was a young adult, she worked for seven years at
the University of North Carolina-Charlotte in food services making salads,
then for a short while at the Marriott making beds. When she lost that job,
there was no more work to be found. Opportunities for people with special needs
over the age of 21 were scarce. So, Missy’s parents decided to take matters
into their own hands.

Because Missy had always enjoyed getting dirty, Lib thought,
“Why not pottery?” She enrolled in a class and took Missy to learn with her.
Those classes were followed by another class at the University where the
instructor gave Missy and Lib their own studio for a while. Then Missy’s dad
said, “Let’s build our own studio,” and that’s what they did.

Missy sells her pottery at shows. Its
childlike, primitive quality with colorful creatures painted on the sides give her work a style all its own. I happen to have several Missy Moss Creations
in my home and at my office; people always admire them and they want to know about
the potter who created them.

Missy’s favorite thing to paint on her pottery is butterflies. They have whimsical, big eyes and their wings are spread to fly. Butterflies are one of her passions. She works at a nature
museum, where she gets to feed them. She also is a friend to the turtles
there and serves them gourmet salads that she creates especially for them.

When I hear about all the activities that Missy is involved with, it makes me dizzy. At one of the local churches she goes to dances and plays bingo. She attends art classes.
She participates in her “Circle of Friends” with over 200 developmentally
delayed people from all around the city. At church she enjoys cooking and
cleaning up. Her obsessive-compulsive tendencies come in handy because she has a knack for
keeping everything in its place.

At night, Missy has a ritual of putting things to bed
because she doesn’t like anything staring at her while she sleeps. So she’ll
turn her pictures to face the wall every night. Interestingly, she doesn’t mind
being up front during worship, where she clearly has the attention of everyone
in the church. All eyes are upon her whenever she serves as an acolyte.

Lighting the altar candles is a challenge for Missy because
she has some issues with her eyes that leave her with no depth perception. Have
you ever tried to light a candle with one of those long candle lighters and you
can’t tell exactly how far away the candle is? It ain’t easy! When Missy first
began serving as an acolyte, she took the candle lighter home to practice, but on Sunday mornings, she rarely hits her mark. We learned that the best way
to handle this is to have another person stand behind her and help guide her
arm toward the candlewick, if necessary.
I am always watching and hoping that she won't need the help, but
she pretty much always does.

On the Sunday after Missy’s 50th birthday, she
was serving as acolyte. Before the service, as she pulled her robe over her
head I noticed she was flushed and a little teary. “Are you all right, Missy?”
I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I just love it! I love it so much!”

When it came time for her to light the first candle, Missy
struggled to get the flame near the wick. First she was short, then she was
long. She went to the right of the candle, then to the left. So the assisting
minister who was standing behind her gently touched her arm and guided her to
the right spot.

Missy bowed at the altar and moved to the second candle.
This time she slowly and deliberately moved the candle lighter in the direction
of the altar candle. She touched the fire to the tip of the wick, and a flame
popped up on top of the candle. As soon as she saw it, she looked over at me
and I gave her a thumps up. She smiled smugly in a way that said, Of course I lit the candle, that's what I do; I'm an acolyte! and then she gave me a big thumbs up of her own.
It was a moment of absolute triumph and joy. Nothing else that followed in the
worship service that morning could top it.

After worship, when I greeted Missy, I told her, “You did a
great job lighting those candles today!”

Missy hugged me and said, “I did GREAT!”

That’s the way she saw the day. She did great! There were
two candles on the altar. She lit them both. One, with some assistance. And the
other, all on her own. Yes, she did great. And she knew it. The meaning of her deep wisdom for my
own life was not lost on me.

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

I just got home from a meeting of the
100th Anniversary Committee at Holy Trinity. We’re making plans for
our centennial coming up in 2016. One of the ideas that keeps surfacing is having
worship one Sunday the way people would have worshiped back in 1916, using the
old black service book. Every time the idea comes up, I’m like a wet blanket,
so now they all know that I’m against it. But, that doesn’t mean we won’t do
it. Holy Trinity is not a dictatorship and I don’t always get my way. I’m
starting to realize that this would be meaningful to a number of people and
maybe it’s time for me to get out of the way so the train can leave the
station.

Tonight, as I was driving home from the
meeting, I was trying to figure out why this is something I have consistently discouraged despite the fact that folks continue to raise the idea. They obviously want to
do it. What would it hurt to worship this way just once? A few would relish the
archaic language with the thees and
the thous. There also might be those
who gain a greater appreciation for the way we worship now after experiencing
the old style that Lutherans once practiced. Most people, I suspect, would find
it interesting to learn what it was like to worship at Holy Trinity a hundred
years ago.

But as I was thinking this through and
imagined how it would feel for me to be present for this service, I suddenly
realized the depth of my feelings. I literally felt nauseous. It had little to
do with the style and content of the worship itself. For the first time, I
understood how it probably would feel for an African-American to be asked to
take part in a re-enactment of the good old days on the plantation before the
Civil War.

The fact is, I would not have been
leading a worship service in a Lutheran church 100 years ago. I would not have
been allowed to vote, or serve on the Council, or give communion, or read aloud from
the Bible in worship, or teach adult men, or usher, or even light the freakin' candles on the altar. If we decide to re-enact a worship service from
100 years ago, I should be sitting in the congregation.

There are those who will think I’m being
overly sensitive about this, I’m sure. But it's honestly how I feel. And I don’t know what I’m going to do
about it, when and if the time comes. Perhaps I will have resolved it for
myself by then. If it happens, I may
take a vacation week and miss the whole thing. The very thought of it hurts me.

So, it’s a conundrum for me. I don’t want
to impose my personal agenda on my congregation. But I also don’t want to be
disingenuous with the people I serve beside. I don’t want to insist on my own
way, but I also don’t want to remain silent when something is important to me.

I
wonder if Lutheran pastors worried about stuff like this 100 years ago. My impression is
that they didn’t. They just told their congregations how it was going to be and
that’s the way it was. While that may have some appeal to me at times, it’s not
the way pastors are any more. Most of the time, that’s a relief to me. And I
suspect it is to the people in my congregation, as well.

The irony of the situation isn’t lost on
me. 100 years ago, as pastor, I would have told my congregation exactly how we
would be worshiping on a Sunday morning and that would be the end of the
discussion. Well, not exactly. 100 years ago I would have been listening to a man
tell me exactly how we would be worshiping on a Sunday morning and I would have
kept my pretty little mouth shut.

Sunday, October 19, 2014

I HATE to pay taxes. Pastors are considered self-employed, so I don’t
have taxes withheld from my paychecks. And four times a year, I have to send my
estimated taxes to the IRS as well as the state of North Carolina. If you’ve
ever wondered why I seem to be depressed four times and year, there’s your
answer. It seems like every time I’m getting ahead and I have a nice sum of
money in my bank account, it’s time to pay my quarterly estimated taxes and
just like that, I’m wiped out and I have to start over. You better believe it’s
depressing!

And
yet, as much as I might detest paying taxes, for the people living in Jesus’
world, it was so much worse. Because it wasn’t just a matter of giving up their
hard-earned money to the government. For Jews living in first century
Palestine, there were several different taxes, such as temple taxes, land
taxes, and customs taxes.

The
tax the Herodians and the Pharisees were questioning in their confrontation
with Jesus was a particularly controversial one. It was the Imperial tax paid as a tribute to
Rome. The money it generated was used to
support the Roman occupation of Israel.
So, people were required to pay their oppressors to support their own
oppression. And that’s a pretty good reason to hate being taxed.

The
good religious people in this story, the Pharisees, had good religious reasons
for hating the Imperial tax. It was an annual flat tax. Everyone had to pay one
denarius, which was a Roman coin engraved with a picture of Caesar Tiberius and
a proclamation of his divinity. So, every time they paid it, they were forced to
break the first two commandments. But
not everyone saw it that way. The ones who had been given power by the Romans,
the Herodians, were all for it, of course. So, this made the Imperial Tax a divisive
issue in Jesus’ day. As soon as you shared your opinion about it, people knew
exactly where you stood. That made it the perfect issue to trap Jesus.

Over
the past few Sundays, we’ve been working our way through the days between
Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem and his death on the cross in Matthew’s
gospel. Things are getting tense. The Jewish leaders are watching him and
they’re not happy. They question his authority. And Jesus counters by telling
them three parables in a row, all with the same theme: there are some people
who think they are in, and others who appear to be out. But the truth is, it’s
the ones who appear to be out who are in and the ones who think they’re in who
are out. It was clear to those who prided themselves on their righteousness
before God that Jesus was slamming them. So, beginning with today’s passage,
they’re on the attack. They set out to trap Jesus so he’ll say something
damning and they can be done with him.

But
first, before they start hitting Jesus with their gotcha questions, they butter
him up telling him what a great guy he is. So wise, and impartial. They’re
being all nicey-nice, luring Jesus just far enough into their trap so he’ll
bite, the trap will snap shut and they’ll have him.

Well,
Jesus sees right through their malarkey. He calmly plays along, confident he
can beat them at their own game. Then they drop the bait, “Tell us, Jesus, what
do you think? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”

Oh,
yeah. This’ll get him, for sure. He can’t possibly win. Either he’ll disappoint
the people by defending the tax or he’ll jeopardize himself with the Roman
officials if he argues against it. He’s between the veritable rock and a hard
place. And then things get really interesting.

Before
answering their question, Jesus reframes it by asking to see the coin used to
pay the tax. Apparently, his pockets are empty, or he might have been able to
produce a denarius himself. But the pockets of his accusers are not empty. And,
as it turns out, they have no problem producing a denarius. Voila! Right there
in the Temple, where it would be blasphemous to carry the divine image of
Caesar. Interesting, indeed!

Seeing the Roman coin,
Jesus asks for some clarity. “‘Whose image is on this?”

“The emperor’s,” they
say. And at that, he answers their question. “Give therefore to the emperor the
things that are the emperor’s…” Aha! We knew it! He’s a supporter of Rome!But just when they think they have him,
he goes on to say, “…and to God the things that are God’s.”

Now, the passage tells
us “When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.” But
what I want to know is, exactly what was it that amazed them? Were they amazed
at how he had escaped their trap? Were they amazed at how clever he was? Or was
it his answer that amazed them?

I would be amazed if it
was his answer that amazed them. Because really, what was he talking about? “Give
the emperor the things that are the emperor’s and to God the things that are
God’s.” What’s that supposed to mean?
People have been speculating about it for couple thousand years.

Some will say that Jesus
was talking about the separation of church and state, which is a very American
concept that would have been totally foreign to people living in first century
Palestine.

Pastors often like to
use this passage to make a case for why people need to give their money to the
church. I’ve done it myself. But really, is that what Jesus was talking about
here?

Maybe it’s about who has
the greatest power and authority, since that seems to be what has them all in a
tizzy. Obviously, God rules over all, even the Caesars of this world. So, our
greatest allegiance belongs to God. I would say that it probably has something
to do with that. But I honestly don’t know. It could be taken a lot of
different ways. And that’s the richness of the text for us as people of faith.

It serves to remind us
of how messy the Jesus Way of life can be. We all have ideas about what it
looks like ideally. “I have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back, no
turning back.” We forsake the ways of the world and take up our cross and
follow him. We give ourselves to him completely. We live into the Reign of God
as our new reality…. And then when that’s not the way it seems to be working
for us, we feel like miserable failures.

In this passage, Jesus is
getting real. He acknowledges that it’s not easy to live in the real world as
God’s people. Yes, the image of God has been imprinted on each of us, but the
image of Caesar still has power over us. For as long as we our earthly lives
last, we never have the option of living for God alone without regard for the ways
of the dominant culture around us. We can’t opt out of it. We have to deal with
it.

Luther teaches that God
is God of all of it in his doctrine of two kingdoms. God
rules the world in two ways: in the earthly realm, through temporal means such
as civil government, and in the spiritual realm, through the gospel of trust in
Christ alone. That’s how it looks ideally. But in reality, how
do we negotiate it?

Take the whole issue of
taxes for us as Christians. It takes on an entirely different meaning than it
did for people in Jesus’ day. We can see that our taxes provide us with all kinds
of benefits: care for the elderly, highways, public safety, national defense,
education, assistance for the poor. These are all things that most of us would
gladly support. But our taxes also go toward frivolous government spending,
corrupt politicians, and wars. Unfortunately, when we pay our taxes, there are
no boxes on the form we can check off to indicate how we would like our money
to be allocated. So, what do we do? We can refuse to pay, but then we would go
to jail. And, I don’t know about you, but I’d rather just pay the darn tax.
It’s messy.

As Christians, we’re
called to act on behalf of the poor and the marginalized and to speak out for
those who cannot speak for themselves. So, as someone with a passion for
justice, I’ve tried hard to watch where I spend my money. I avoid shopping at
Walmart because I believe they’re unjust in the way they treat their employees,
and the way they put so many small companies out of business, and the way they
exploit workers in other countries, all in the interest of offering the
cheapest product possible to consumers and making a ton of money. So, even
though it might save me a few dollars, I try not to shop at Walmart. I spend a
little more and proudly shop at Target. Then after I get home and look at the
label on the shirt I just bought there, I have to wonder when I notice that it
was made in Bangladesh.

For a long time, I
refused to shop at Hobby Lobby because they withheld birth control from their
employees for religious reasons. But then, I learned that Hobby Lobby takes
corporate social responsibility seriously and they start their new employees at
90% above the minimum wage. Something not many companies can say.

We like to divide the
world up into the good guys and the bad guys. Things that are pure and things
that are dirty. The godly and the ungodly. But that’s not reality. Often, even
when you think you’re doing what’s good and pure and godly, you learn that it’s
anything but. Real life is messy.

Every day, in big and
small ways, I am participating in the exploitation of other people. I am part
of a system of injustice and violence and power just by virtue of being an
American. And yet, I claim to be a follower of one who was all about justice
and non-violence and serving others.

Every once in a while,
I’ll hear a story about a Christian somewhere in the world who is given a
choice, either renounce your faith or be killed. The way the story always goes,
the Christian stands firm, and they die for their faith. Of course, we never
hear the stories about the ones who say, “Jesus who?” and go on with their lives.
But these stories leave me wondering… if I were in a situation like that, what
would I do? And I think, surely Christ would understand my predicament and
would not want me to be killed, so what would it hurt to say the words with my
lips, “I renounce Christ”, knowing full well I hadn’t done that in my heart and
surely Christ would know that, too. And I would be forgiven by the God of love
for saying what I needed to say to save my life.

After all, isn’t that
what Jesus did with Peter who once said, “Jesus who?” to save his own skin?

I take some comfort in
the fact I will never be forced to face such a moment. But I also know that real
life isn’t about saying a simple yes or no to Jesus. It’s messier than that.

I don’t know what to do
about this. I try the best I can to be faithful, knowing that, despite my best
intentions, I often fail. I know it all sounds rather hopeless, but actually, I
am ever hopeful, partly because of passages like this one where Jesus keeps
life real. He knows what it means to be a person of faith living in a world
that makes it difficult. He knows that good, religious people carry the image
of Caesar in their pockets and into the Temple.

But, more importantly, the
God of all has created us in his image. So we carry the image of God into our
real lives in all their messiness. Following Jesus isn’t about doing all the
right things, making all the right choices, or living pure holy lives. It’s
about trusting in the relationship we have with the one whose image is imprinted
on our hearts. He is the God of grace who has planted us in the messy reality
of our lives, promising to love us through it.

Sunday, October 12, 2014

I
can never remember a time like this in my life. The closest I can come was with
our Churchwide Assembly in 2009. As a congregation, Holy Trinity had worked
tirelessly for decades toward the full inclusion of gays and lesbians within the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. I honestly didn’t think it would ever happen
until someday after I retired, if we were lucky. And then, all of sudden, we
were hearing that maybe the time had come. I couldn’t believe it, because here
in the buckle of the Bible belt it didn’t look promising. But there’s a whole
big ELCA out there beyond the North Carolina Synod. So, we held our breath,
which wasn’t that hard to do because the tension was so high at our Churchwide
Assembly in Minneapolis that you couldn’t breathe anyway.

I
was there at the moment it happened and it was like nothing I had ever
experienced. I remember going outside to call Tim Funk from the Charlotte Observer to give him the news
and church bells started ringing from Central Lutheran across the street. It
felt like the end of the war to me and in my head I was hearing the words to a
good old Lutheran Advent hymn, of all things:

Comfort, comfort, now my people; tell of
peace! So says our God.

Comfort those who sit in darkness
mourning under sorrow’s load.

To God’s people now proclaim that God’s
pardon waits for them!

Tell them that their war is over; God
will reign in peace forever.

For
as long as I live I will remember that moment.
At the time, I thought no other moment would ever compare in my lifetime.
On Friday I learned I had been wrong about that. And that line, “tell them that
their war is over” rang in my head again.

After
Amendment One passed in North Carolina in May of 2012, with the approval of less
than 20% of North Carolina voters, many of us were feeling disheartened and
defeated. It seemed like every day we were hearing of states where same gender
couples could marry and, here in North Carolina, we were living in the Dark Ages.

Three
years ago, on the night our North Carolina General Assembly voted to take this
very unconstitutional constitutional amendment to the voters, the interfaith community
gathered here at Holy Trinity for a prayer vigil. We were devastated. And
Pastor Jay Leach took to the pulpit and reminded us of the words of Theodore
Parker who was quoted by Martin Luther King, Jr. a hundred years later in the
civil rights movement. “The moral arc of the universe may be long, but it bends
toward justice.” And for three years, we have clung to those words of hope, not
knowing how long it would take, but with absolute certainly that justice would
come.

Last
Sunday when we gathered in this place to worship, we had no idea what was about
to transpire. A seismic shift was headed our way. Nothing would ever be the
same for us. Now, as we catch our breath with a day of worship before the first
legal same-gender marriages take place in Charlotte tomorrow, my message to you
is – Remember.

Remember
the announcement Monday telling us that within days or hours, marriage equality
would be realized in North Carolina. It was an absolutely nerve-wracking week
for those of us who were watching it closely. Social media made it possible to
follow minute by minute. We were tweeting, texting, messaging, emailing, and
even using the telephone. We followed each development, hanging onto every
glimmer of hope. It was a lot to keep up with!

Every
day I woke up and thought, this is the day. By Thursday I didn’t know how much
more of it I could take it. On Friday, when the campaign for Southern Equality
told everyone in Asheville to get to the courthouse, my head was about to
explode. My UU colleague, Robin Tanner called me on the phone, “What is
happening?” she asked. Dunno. But after our conversation, I immediately texted
her, “Can’t stand it. I’m going uptown.” She texted me back, “Me too.” My gut
was telling me, “This is it!” and I rushed to the Mecklenburg County
courthouse.

Cathy
and Joanne, and Kevin and Aaron met me there. They applied for their marriage
licenses. Then we waited around until the Register of Deeds’ office closed. And
that was it. No decision yet. So no one was getting married in Charlotte on
Friday.

When
I got to my car, shortly after 5:00, I opened my email and there was something
new from one of our lawyers. They had been keeping us updated throughout the
week. And
while everyone was focused on the political drama in Greensboro, our case was
rapidly approaching the finish line in Asheville. These words from his email
jumped out at me: “We had a conference call with Judge Cogburn at 3:45…. He
took comments from every register of deeds counsel that nothing more needed to
be filed, and then commented that any more filings would only delay the outcome
– then scoffed at the Tillis/Berger motion to intervene.” Finally, a voice of
reason!

And
then, within the hour, it was over. Amendment One was ruled unconstitutional. Remember
that moment. Remember the exact moment the moral arc of the universe touched
justice in North Carolina.

Remember.
There have been other such times in history. And remembering this time, in a
sense, puts us in solidarity with people of other times who have worked, and
waited, and hoped for justice. Imagine what it must have felt like to live in
slavery your whole life and learn that you finally were free. Or how people
felt when World War II ended. Or when women were at long last able to vote in
this country. October 10, 2014 gives us a memory like that.

Remember.
In remembering, we know that we stand in a long line of people of faith who
have worked toward justice throughout history, the kind of justice the prophet
Amos spoke of when he said, “Let justice roll down like waters, and
righteousness like an every-flowing stream.” On Friday, I understood how
justice rolls down like waters in a way I never had before. When the day was
over and I finally had a moment to absorb the events of the past few hours,
justice was rolling down like waters from my eyes. I will always remember those
tears. Many of them were shed in thanksgiving that there are so many people who
will never remember what we remember. All the children born in North Carolina
that day and every day that follows will never live in the kind of world we
were living in just two days ago.

But,
the fight isn’t over. There are still people in South Carolina and Tennessee
and about 20 other states where the struggle continues. And
for many of you who gay, lesbian or transgender, the struggle may continue in your
place of employment or within your own families.

During
the Civil Rights movement, Dr. King was asked about the futility of changing
the law when you can’t change people’s hearts. And he replied, “It may be true
that the law cannot make a man love me but it can keep him from lynching me and
I think that’s pretty important.” Changing North Carolina’s marriage laws is
pretty important. But it doesn’t make people love us and it doesn’t end the
fight for justice. We still have work to do. Remember.

Most
of all, my hope is that we will continue to remember after the celebrations
have passed. Remember and be transformed by this extraordinary time in our
lives. We fought injustice. And we learned what it’s like to press on, never
knowing if we will live to see the victory, but hoping and trusting that God is
at work, even in the darkest of times. We have been given a blessed memory.
We’ve learned first-hand that it really is true --The moral arc of the universe
may be long, but it bends toward justice. And
we’re learned that it doesn’t just bend on its own. We can’t sit back and wait
for it to bend. It takes effort. We are a part of the bending.

Remember.
For in the larger context, this isn’t simply about justice for gay people. It’s
about justice for all people. As people of God, we are called to stand on the
side of justice. Yes, justice for men and women who want the freedom to have a
life with the one they love. But justice also for the chronically poor, people
without sufficient medical care, young adults with life-crippling student
loans, people who come to this country seeking a better life for themselves and
their children, people of color who continue to be denied the privileges white
people take for granted, the list could go on and on.

As
God’s people, we stand on the side of justice by walking alongside those who
suffer injustice. Remembering that moments like Friday really do happen makes
it just a little easier to press on. So remember, be transformed, and participate
in God’s promise of justice.

Thursday, October 9, 2014

I’m not a big fan of uncertainty. I don’t like surprises,
even when they’re good ones. I like to know what I can expect and then I
appreciate it when my expectations are met, thank you very much. Of course,
life seldom goes that way, which is why I’m often stressed out. I’ve tried to
deal with it by practicing contemplative prayer, taking brisk walks, or soaking
in the tub. And for the most part, I’ve been coping. But this week has put me
OVER THE TOP!

On Monday, my friends and I were whooping it up when we learned that it
would be hours or days before marriage equality became a reality in North
Carolina. Clergy in Charlotte who have been fighting the good fight planned a
celebration. The day it all comes down, we’re going to meet for an interfaith
service of celebration followed by a champagne reception. We lined up a worship
service with musicians and speakers. We found people to provide cake,
champagne, sparkling grape juice, paper products, tablecloths, floral
arrangements, etc. Because Holy Trinity is in a great location in the center of
town, we agreed to host the event. I picked up decorations for the outside of
the church. One of our parishioners made new wedding wreaths just for the
occasion. We scrambled and were ready if it happened on Tuesday...but it didn’t.

On Wednesday, I had conversations with couples who are so
thrilled to finally be emerging from the Dark Ages in North Carolina (the past
2+ years since the travesty of Amendment One passed in our state), that they
don’t want to wait another day before they are married. So we made arrangements
to meet at the courthouse at the first opportunity. The three couples are all members of Holy Trinity. All have been together for a long time, and all
have children (eight total), whom they want to have present when they marry on
the courthouse steps. As far as I’m
concerned, these people have been married in God’s eyes for years. And soon
they will have the opportunity to be married in North Carolina’s eyes as well.
It’s about damn time!

But no, apparently it isn’t. Because we continue to wait.
This morning I was so confident that it would happen today that I wore
my clergy shirt (something I never do midweek unless I have a funeral). I
recruited people to lug chairs to the sanctuary for more seating for the
service. Others set the tables up for the reception. And then this afternoon at
about ten till five, BAM!

For a reason I don’t understand, the judge is allowing some
politicians to enter the fray at the 11:00 hour and put a kibosh on everything.
How is this even possible? Lawyers continue to assure us that they don’t have a
leg to stand on, so why is this happening? And how long will we have to wait?
The driving force behind this is Thom Tillis, who is running for the US Senate
in November. He has done a wonderful job of tearing down North Carolina during his time spent in the General Assembly with
his rabidly conservative agenda. And now he wants an opportunity to do the same
thing to our country. Of course, he’s whipping up his base to get them to the
polls. I wonder if he realizes that he’s also energizing his opposition.
But none of that is really the point.

The point is, there are people in North Carolina who have
been waiting all their lives to receive the same protections and benefits under
the law as their straight counterparts. Men, women and children have been
scorned and denigrated long enough because of whom they love. Every day those who oppose marriage equality continue to hang onto this losing battle is
one more day that hatred and bigotry continue to hold thousands of North
Carolina families hostage. Enough is enough!

So I sit and wait and trust in the promise that love is
stronger than hate and love always wins. A friend said today that it’s a lot
like waiting for a baby to be born. You know it’s coming soon, but you don’t
know exactly when. So you wait for the happy day. And I thought, yeah, that’s a
good analogy for this week. But tonight I’m imagining that I’m near the
end of my pregnancy and I’ve begun to have labor pains when some deluded fool comes
along and tries to convince everyone around me that I’m not pregnant after all
and there’s no baby coming. Excuse me?!

Monday, October 6, 2014

I stood in the doorway to my dorm room and announced: “It
looks like pexadition in here!”

My roommate looked at me with a blank face and then asked, “What
on earth are you talking about?”

“It looks like pexadition in here.”

“Pexadition? I have no idea what that means.”

“You don’t know what pexadition is!?” How was it possible
that she had lived this long and didn’t know what the word pexadition meant?

So, I started asking other people in my freshman dorm and
NOBODY had any knowledge of the word. And yet, as I was growing up, I had heard
it on a regular basis. Most often, it was used by mom as she pronounced
judgment on the way I kept my bedroom. “It looks like pexadition in here!” Pexadition, as I understood it, meant
that the place was a dump, like the slum area we had back home in Hamilton, Ohio.

I decided to go to the source. So I called my mom up and I
asked her about it. Well, as it turns out, pexadition was really Peck’s Addition. It was named for a man
named Peck, who owned the land where the dump was located and where the housing
projects were built for the poor people who lived in my hometown. The word I
was using had no meaning for anyone who didn’t come from Hamilton, Ohio. And
that was the first time I can recall realizing how small my world had been
growing up. It took going away to college, a whole 3 hours up I-75 from Hamilton, for me to
experience that.

Growing up in a city of nearly 80,000 people, I considered myself a
woman of the world, but Bowling Green State University was an eye-opener for
me. One semester I took a class in Black Literature. I thought it sounded
interesting and it was. I was introduced to wonderful authors like James Weldon Johnson, Maya Angelou,
Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Gwendolyn Brooks and Nikki Giovanni.

I also learned how it felt to be “the other.” For some
reason I couldn’t understand, the other students in the class hated me. I
thought this was unfair because they didn’t know me. All they knew about me was
the color of my skin, and that was all it took. I thought they would appreciate
the fact that, as a white person, I cared enough to learn about black writers,
but that was not the case. They clearly resented me for being in their class
and they let me know I didn’t belong there. If I ever dared to speak, they
jumped all over me. So, I learned to put a sock in it.

Near the end of the term, there was a lot of buzz about
Nikki Giovanni coming to campus for a poetry reading. I decided it was an
opportunity not to be missed, so I went. Every black person on campus was
there. I had never been in such company and admit that I felt a bit
uncomfortable when I took my seat and looked around; I could see no other white
faces.

Before Ms. Giovanni spoke, some music started playing and
everyone rose to their feet. I joined them, although I had no idea what was
happening. Suddenly, I was surrounded by thousands of people who started
singing a song I had never heard in my life. They all knew every single word,
which they sang with conviction. (I later learned that it was a hymn now in our
Lutheran hymnal, “Lift Every Voice and Sing”, written by James Weldon Johnson.
It’s known to many as “the black national anthem.”)

Wow! There was a whole other world out there that I never
knew existed. I went to class with some of these people and I knew nothing
about their world. Being a part of the majority, I figured they probably knew
quite a bit about my world, but until that moment, I naively thought that our
worlds were basically the same. I had been so wrong about that.

The best thing about going away to college is experiencing worlds different than the one you have always known. It is a transformative
experience and clearly what it means when we say that once a person grows, they
can never shrink back to their old size. And the thing is, until you’re
challenged with new worlds, you live with the illusion that the world you’ve
always known is all there is.

I remember years ago hearing the story of an ant, who lived
what he thought was a very full life, only to discover that he had been living
under a bushel basket all along. When he finally crawled out from under it, he
was amazed to see how much larger the world was than he had ever imagined. He
began to explore this big new world. Eventually, he discovered that he was
inside a greenhouse and the world outside the green house was even bigger than
he could ever have imagined. As the story goes on, you learn that the greenhouse
was located inside the Astrodome, and the little ant’s world still had some
expanding to do.

When our world expands, we have an opportunity to be
transformed by the experience. That’s why I think it’s important for young
people to move away from their hometown, at least for a while. Go to college,
join the military, get a job in another city… just move out so you can move on!

I’m not talking about travel. Travel may enrich us, but
rarely does it truly transform us. Travel makes us objective observers of other worlds, but we
don’t get to know how it feels to actually live in those worlds. It’s much like visiting
the zoo where we see exotic animals that stir our imagination, but we have no
real connection to them.

I have mixed feelings about mission trips. Financially, they
don’t make a lot of sense and in most cases the people served would be better
off if we just sent them the money and gave them the tools to do the work
themselves. But really, the value of mission trips isn’t found in the work the
team accomplishes.

I’ve had the honor of taking several mission trips with
college students through the years. It usually involves plucking an affluent
young person up from their comfortable middle-class life and dropping them into
a culture of poverty. Initially, there is always a period of culture shock. And
then there comes a time when I’ll hear team members express their gratitude for
their way of life back home with statements like, “It really makes you
appreciate what you have.” Some of them never get past that. But those who are
able to empathize with the ones they are serving alongside and form
relationships with them come to ask questions like, “Why is there so much
disparity in the world?” and “How might my way of life back home contribute to
it?” That’s when transformation takes place, when lives are changed forever.

The fact is, there are people all around us who live in
worlds we can’t begin to imagine. Back when I was in seminary, I was taken to a
part of Columbus, Ohio most people who lived there knew nothing about. It was
like a third world country in the middle of the city. There were no marked
streets. There was no sewer system. People were living in makeshift housing. How
was this possible, I wondered? The people of Columbus traveled from work to
home, from church and out to eat, to school and to sporting events, over and
over again, and yet they never came to this part of the city. An entirely
different world existed in the midst of them, and they had no awareness of it.

Through the years, I’ve discovered multiple worlds alongside
my world that I had no awareness of. There certainly is a different world that
the chronically poor live in that is foreign to anything I have ever
experienced. But there also is a world the extremely wealthy inhabit that I
know nothing about. There is a world undocumented immigrants experience that I
can’t begin to imagine. A world transgender people inhabit, Muslims, military
families, Alzheimer’s patients, wheelchair-bound people… The list could go on
and on. They are all people I can’t begin to understand from my own limited
experience, much less presume to know what they want or need.

The life of transformation that God calls us to be a part of
involves entering into worlds we know nothing of. We could play it safe and stay within our own
little world and do just fine, but I believe God wants more for us. This is
just one more facet of what Jesus meant when he encouraged his disciples not to
cling to their lives, but to let them go. He assures us that it is in losing
our safe little lives that we find real life, full of surprise and adventure,
and overflowing with love, peace and joy! It is a life that bravely moves out
and moves on, facing worlds we never could have imagined.

Friday, September 19, 2014

I was at a gathering of professional church leaders this week and heard
a speaker making a strong case for the fact that God doesn’t have a plan for
us. He seemed to be reacting to people who like to explain whatever happens by
saying that it was all a part of God’s plan. The idea that God has a plan for
each of us can be comforting when your cancer goes into remission. But it’s
downright disturbing when it has spread into all your vital organs. It’s hard
to see how the God of goodness and love could plan such a thing. And if that’s
what it means to say that God has a plan, I would agree with him.

That’s why some of the clichés used by Christians drive me up a
wall. One is, “There but by the grace of God go I.” It’s used when we see
someone who is struggling in life and we take comfort in the fact that
our lives may not be great, but they’re not as bad as the miserable-excuse-for-a-life that poor slob is living. Saying, “There but by the grace of God go I”
begs the question, “Why would a God of grace decide to give you a life of ease,
while inflicting a life of suffering on someone else?” It doesn’t make
sense. How could the grace of God be dispensed to some but withheld from others
like that?

Another cliché that drives me up a wall and onto the ceiling is, “God is good… all
the time.” This is something I always hear when things have gone well in a
person’s life. “We got the offer we wanted on the house. God is good…” And then
someone will nod in agreement and finish the thought, “…all the time.” All the
time, God is good. I don’t have a problem with the statement. My beef is with
the times we use it. I’ve never heard those words spoken by someone whose life
has just gone down the toilet. And yet, if God is good all the time, that would
include those times when we’re one flush away from losing everything.

So, if that’s the sort of thing we mean when we say that God has a
plan for us, I would agree with the speaker. But then he supported his point with
the story from Acts 1, where the apostles needed to find a replacement for the
vacancy left by Judas. They decided to do this by saying a prayer and
casting lots. I think the speaker’s point was that it’s ludicrous to think God
has a specific plan for us. It’s all just a crap shoot.

I've been thinking about this for several days now and have decided that I can't agree with him. If anything, the story from Acts seems to refute his point. As it turned out, God did have a plan for the apostles. It didn’t happen for his
followers according to their timeline, nor did it happen in the way they had
expected. But God chose an apostle to round out the twelve. His name was Saul.
(After God chose him, he became known as Paul.)

I don’t think it’s true that God doesn’t have a plan for us. But I
do believe that we can’t possibly presume to know what that plan is. Such
presumption always gets us into trouble because we can’t get around assigning our
very human way of thinking to God. We assume things should go a certain way
based on the bias we have for whatever works best for us. This puts us in the
position of judging God’s performance according to how well God is meeting our
expectations. We blame God when tragedy strikes, or we pat God on the back when
things go well. But God is so much bigger than that. We can’t presume to see
the ways of creation as the Creator does. So how can we possibly presume to understand God’s
plan?

Of course, this also means we have to admit that we ourselves have
no control over God’s plan. We can’t make it unfold the way we would like it to
no matter how hard we try. The fact is, it will unfold, often despite our best
efforts.

What I want is to be a willing participant in God’s plan. I want
God to use me in accomplishing his will. I learned from Martin Luther that God’s
will is going to be done with or without my help. But it’s a lot better for me when it’s
done with me than when it’s done despite me.

God’s gonna do what God’s gonna do. I can’t begin to imagine what
that is. I liken God’s plan to a swiftly flowing stream. It’s headed somewhere,
but I have no idea where that might be. It’s always moving, always changing. I
can sit back and watch the stream flow by, or I can jump into it and be a part
of it. When I find myself in it, I can resist it and expend untold energy
trying to change its direction. Or I can be open to where it takes me. I can give
myself to the stream and allow it to pull me with it. That takes openness and a
lot of trust. And it’s what I’m trying to do these days. I might bump up
against some rocks from time to time, I might be thrown upon the shore, or
thrust into the depths so that I’m gasping for air. But all that is a part of
what it means to be in relationship with a God who has a plan.

Sunday, August 31, 2014

I remember the low raspy sound of a man grunting in exasperation because he couldn’t use his tongue. He resorted to communicating with a pad and pencil. I was too young to recall the sound of his voice before he got sick. But I do remember what it was like to watch a once vibrant man who threw a softball and ran around the bases go to needing the assistance of a cane to get around, and then a wheel-chair. I remember how the simplest tasks in life became impossible for him to perform. Most of all, I remember the sadness in my mother, as she watched her husband, just a 45 year-old man, lose the use of his body. Because I was a little girl at the time, I didn’t realize the cruelest part of the disease. While my father’s body was wasting away, his mind was functioning perfectly, so that he was fully aware of what his disease was doing to him. It was more than he could bear and he wanted it to end. When I was in first grade, his prayers were answered, and he died.

The letters A.L.S. have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. But I’ve rarely heard other people talk about it. And now, for the past few weeks, all that has changed. I’ve been hearing people talk about ALS more than I ever have in my life.

If you’re not on social media, you may not know what I’m talking about. It’s called the ALS Ice-Bucket Challenge. And what happens is that a person who is challenged has the option of making a contribution to the ALS Association or they can dump a bucket of ice water on their head. Most people choose to do both. And then they challenge their friends to do the same. Every day, I’ve been watching videos of celebrities and Facebook friends dumping buckets of ice-water on their heads. It may sound like a gimmick, or just something trendy to do, but apparently it’s working because contributions to the ALSA are way up. Over the course of one month, they have topped 100 million dollars. Awareness about ALS among the public is up, too. How can this not be a good thing?

Because of my personal connection, I’ve been thinking about it a lot. And in many respects it reminds me of the gospel lesson for this Sunday, Matthew 16:21-28. (Yeah, preachers find that pert near EVERYTHING reminds them of Sunday’s text.)

Peter has just experienced his bright, shining moment. When he’s asked who he thinks Jesus is by none other than Jesus himself, he rises to the occasion. “You are the Messiah!” he declares. Jesus is pleased and he praises Peter up and down, calling him a rock. But then Jesus starts talking about what it means for him to be the Messiah and it wasn’t what Peter had in mind at all. He’s going to be arrested and killed? “No way”, Peter says. “That’s not what I meant when I said you were the Messiah.” And just like that, Jesus comes back at him and shoots him down. In a few short verses, Peter goes from rock star to Satan.

First Peter was smokin’ hot, and then he gets cold water thrown on him. No doubt it caused some steam! (Oh, forgive me for that.)

When we talk about throwing cold water on something, the expression usually refers to a downer. We’re flying high and everything’s coming up roses and along comes someone who throws cold water on us and ruins all our fun. That’s what the expression means, and Jesus certainly threw an ice-bucket of water on Peter. But we don’t only use the metaphor of cold water to turn a moment of elation into a sobering confrontation with reality. We also use cold water to awaken people and shock some sense into them. There’s nothing like splashing a little cold water in your face to startle you from your sleep-walking so you’re ready to pay attention. And it seems that what Jesus has to say in this gospel text does that, too. His words are like cold water in both ways. To those who were waiting for him to come into his glory as a powerful hero who will defeat their enemies, the vision he lays out for his Messiah-ship is a real downer. But that’s not why he tells his disciples that he’s headed for a cross. He sees that they’re living in la-la land and he wants then to wake up to reality. He’s inviting them to see the truth that will change their lives.

“There is a cross in my future”, he tells them. “And if you want to follow me, there will be a cross in your future, too.” Of course, this applies to us, as well. If we want to follow Jesus, there is a cross involved.

What does that mean to you? I mean, what does it really mean? Not, what have you been taught it should mean because you’re a Christian? But what does it really mean to you to take up your cross and follow him?

I’ve struggled a lot with this over the years. One thing I can tell you for sure is that I can’t buy into the Jesus paid the price for my sins thing. For starters, that concept wasn’t a part of Christian thinking for the first thousand years of Christianity. What came to be known as the satisfaction theory of atonement was the creation of a man named Anselm.

Beyond knowing the history of the concept that Jesus paid the price for my sins on the cross, the whole idea doesn’t make logical sense to me. I believe in a God of unconditional love. So it makes no sense to me that God would only be able to forgive us on the condition that first he kill his son to pay the price for our sins. Really, does someone have to be killed before God can forgive? I think that’s the very thing Jesus came to refute in the way he lived. This idea that when things don’t go our way, somebody has got to pay, was what he gave his life for. He could have cursed those who crucified him, and he would have been justified in doing so. But instead, he forgave them. His followers seemed to get that, because after Jesus died, they didn’t do what the followers of great leaders normally do under such circumstances. Not one of them sought to avenge his death. They understood that this is what it means to take up the cross and follow Jesus.

A lot of people think that taking up a cross means we all need to suffer, or that we should all try to be good little martyrs. But I’ve come to see the cross in other ways. I see the cross as evidence of the absolute humanity of Jesus. I see it as a symbol for defying the ways of power and violence that so dominate our world. I see the cross as a model for resistance of the status-quo. I see the cross as evidence of our human propensity to eliminate the voices that call for justice, mercy, compassion and love. I see the cross as putting to death the ways of death that keep us from truly living so that we might be resurrected to new life.

How do you see the cross? The key to following Jesus is found in the cross. This is not a sidebar to the life of faith. It’s at the very center. “If you don’t get that,” Jesus says, “then you don’t get me.” Our lives as followers of Jesus are shaped by the cross. It’s where God’s love conquers the world of power and violence with vulnerability, mercy and grace. It’s where death leads to life.

There is a challenge in Jesus’ words: “You say you want to follow me? Well, this is how it is. There is no following me without taking up the cross.”

Every day on Facebook I see people challenging one another to dump a bucket of ice water on their head for a worthy cause. And one by one, the challenge is met with enthusiasm. What would it mean for us to rise to Jesus’ challenge -- to take up our cross and follow him?

It’s more difficult than dumping a bucket of water on your head. It’s not something you can video-tape and post on the internet. When we’re baptized, water is poured on our heads and we receive the sign of the cross on our foreheads. When we die, the sign of the cross is made over our bodies. And in between those crosses that mark us and set us apart as Christ’s people, there is the challenge of the cross that meets us every day of our lives.

Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

About Me

Nancy is an ordained pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. She serves at Ascension Lutheran Church in Towson, Maryland. Nancy grew up in Hamilton, Ohio, and then served time at Bowling Green State University, before moving on to Trinity Seminary in Columbus. Starting out in North Dakota, she then returned to Ohio and served churches there before landing in North Carolina, where she served at two different congregations in Charlotte. She was also on the bishop's staff and earned a PhD from Pitt during her spare time in the area of religion and education. She considers herself an educator who happens to be a pastor and it makes a difference in how she does ministry. She is a divorce survivor, and the mother of two artsy-fartsy children who abandoned her when they became adults. Now she shares a home with Father Guido Sarducci, her tuxedo cat.